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Kalevala

Kalevala

The Kalevala is an epic poem which Elias Lönnrot claimed to have compiled from Finnish folk sources in the 19th century. It is commonly called the Finnish national epic and is one of the most significant works of Finnish-language literature. The Kalevala is credited with inspiring the nationalism that ultimately led to Finnish independence from Russia in 1917. The name means "land of Kaleva" (derived from the Finish suffix -la/lä meaning land). The text of the Kalevala consists of 22,795 verses, divided into 50 poems or chapters (finnish runot, singular runo, from Germanic rune).

Writing the Kalevala

Lönnrot was a physician by profession but his passion for the traditional oral stories of his native Finland led him to travel extensively to acquire new material. He collected most of the poems from the region of Karelia. He believed that the small poems he collected were fragments of a once-continuous epic. He published the first Kalevala, the "old" Kalevala, in two volumes in 1835-1836. The old Kalevala consisted of thirty-two poems first collected by Lönnrot from about 1829, which he then edited and expanded with connecting material to make a continuous story. Lönnrot continued to collect new material, which he integrated into a second edition of the Kalevala, published in 1849. This "new" Kalevala contained fifty poems, and is the standard text of the Kalevala read today. A subsequent translation was produced by Keith Bosley, and is widely recognised as the leading version of the epic in English.

Characters

Keith Bosley The main character of the Kalevala is Väinämöinen, a shamanistic hero with the magical power of songs and music. He is born of the primal Maiden of the Air and contributes to the creation of the world. Many of his travels resemble shamanistic journeys, especially the one where he visits the belly of a ground-giant, Antero Vipunen, to find the words of boat generation. He plays the kantele, a Finnish string instrument that is played like a zither. One of his kanteles is made of the jawbone of a giant pike. His search for a wife is a central element in many stories; he never finds one, though. For example one of the brides, Joukahainen's sister Aino, drowns herself instead of marrying him. He is also part of the group who steals the Sampo, a magical mill, from the people of the north. Other characters, some of whom have their own chapters, are Seppo Ilmarinen, a heroic artificer-smith (comparable to the Germanic Weyland) who crafted the sky dome, the Sampo and more; Louhi the Hag of the North, a shamanistic matriarch of a people rivaling those of Kalevala who at one stage pulls the sun and the moon from the sky; Väinämöinen's young rival, Joukahainen, who promises his sister Aino to him when he loses a singing contest; vengeful, self-destructive Kullervo who is born as a slave, goes into berserk rage and commits suicide; and handsome but arrogant Lemminkäinen, whose mother has to rescue his corpse from the river of Death which runs through Tuonela, and bring him to life, echoing the myth of Osiris. Some of the chapters describe ancient creation myths, a long wedding ceremony, and the right words for magical spells of healing and craftsmanship.

# Birth of Väinämöinen. # Väinämöinen's Sowing. # Väinämöinen and Joukahainen. # The Fate of Aino. # Väinämöinen's Lamentation. # Väinämöinen's Hapless Journey. # Väinämöinen's Rescue. # Maiden of the Rainbow. # Origin of Iron. # Ilmarinen Forges the Sampo. # Lemminkäinen's Lament. # Kyllikki's Broken Vow. # Lemminkäinen's Second Wooing. # Death of Lemminkäinen. # Lemminkäinen's Restoration. # Väinämöinen's Boat-building. # Väinämöinen Finds the Lost-word. # The Rival Suitors. # Ilmarinen's Wooing. # The Brewing of Beer. # Ilmarinen's Wedding-feast. # The Bride's Farewell. # Osmotar the Bride-adviser # The Bride's Farewell. # Väinämöinen's Wedding-songs. # Origin of the Serpent. # The Unwelcome Guest. # The Mother's Counsel # The Isle of Refuge. # The Frost-fiend. # Kullervoinen Son of Evil. # Kullervo As A Sheperd. # Kullervo and the Cheat-cake. # Kullervo Finds His Tribe-folk. # Kullervo's Evil Deeds. # Kullervoinen's Victory and Death. # Ilmarinen's Bride of Gold. # Ilmarinen's Fruitless Wooing. # Väinämöinen's Sailing. # Birth of the Kantele. # Väinämöinen's Kantele-songs. # Capture of the Sampo. # The Sampo Lost In the Sea. # Birth of the Second Harp. # Birth of the Nine Diseases # Otso the Honey-eater, telling of a bear hunt. # Louhi Steals Sun, Moon, and Fire. # Capture of the Fire-fish. # Restoration of the Sun and Moon. # Marjatta; Väinämöinen's Departure.

Influence of the Kalevala

The effect of the Kalevala upon later art in Finland has been tremendous, inspiring composer Jean Sibelius, modern poet Paavo Haavikko, painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela, and many others. Besides the local Estonian legends, Kalevala was a major source of inspiration for, and shares several analogous characters with, the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg (compiled and written by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, first version completed 1853). There are several English translations of the Kalevala. The older translations e.g. by John Martin Crawford (1888) and W.F. Kirby (1907), as well as the Eino Friberg translation (1988), follow the original rhythm (Kalevala meter) of the poems (may sound cumbersome to English ears). Poet Keith Bosley has written another version (1989) in a more fluid linguistic style. Finnish rock band Amorphis based several concept albums on the Kalevala using the original translation as lyrics. J.R.R. Tolkien claimed the Kalevala as one of his sources for the writings which became the Silmarillion. For example the story of Kullervo has been extensively used in Silmarillion (including the sword that speaks when the (anti)-hero uses it for a suicide) as basis of Turin Turambar in Narn i Chîn Húrin. Echoes of Kalevalan characters, Väinämöinen in particular, can also be found in the wizards of The Lord of the Rings. The epic was an inspiration for Longfellow's 1855 poem, The Song of Hiawatha, which is written in the same metre (trochaic tetrameter), and also inspired the British science fiction writer Ian Watson to write the Books of Mana duology: Lucky's Harvest and The Fallen Moon. The Finnish cartoonist Mauri Kunnas drew a children's cartoon version of the Kalevala, called Koirien Kalevala (The Canine Kalevala). This, in turn, inspired the American cartoonist Keno Don Rosa (who enjoys widespread popularity in Finland) to draw a Donald Duck story about Kalevala, called The Quest for Kalevala. In 2003, the Finnish Prog quarterly Colossus and Musea Records convinced 30 prog groups from all over the world to compose musical pieces based on assigned parts of the Kalevala. The result was a three-disc, multilingual, four-hour epic of the same name, and is doubtless one of the most ambitious musical projects ever.

The quest for Kalevala

Some parts of the epic may be based on perceived ancient conflicts between Finnics and Samis. In that context, the country of Kalevala could be understood as Southern Finland and Pohjola as Lapland. However, the place names in Kalevala seem to transfer the Kalevala further south, which have been interpreted as support for theories of a Finnic migration from the South that came to push the Samis further to the north, while some scholars locate the country of Kalevala to East Karelia, where most of the Kalevala stories were written down. In 1961 a small town of Uhtua in East Karelia was renamed to "Kalevala", perhaps to promote that theory. Proponents of a Southern Kalevala argue, that the name Kaleva probably was first recorded in an atlas of al Idrisi of year 1154, where a town of qlwny (or tlwny) is recorded. This is probably present day Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, known in old East Slavic sources as Kolyvan. The Finnish word Kalevan ("of Kaleva") has almost the same meaning as Kalevala. The Saari (literally "the island") might be the island of Saaremaa in Estonia, while the people of Väinölä has strong resemblance with the Livonian tribe of Veinalensis in present-day Latvia, that is mentioned in the 13th century chronicle connected to Henry of Livonia. The ancient Finns, Estonians and Livonians spoke similar Finnic dialects and share common ancestry.

Sample

- Download recording - "Vaka vanha Väinämöinen" Finnish poetry from the Kalevala from the Library of Congress' California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties Collection; performed by John Soininen on November 5, 1939 in Berkeley, California

External links

Online versions of the Kalevala

- [http://runeberg.org/kalevala/ A free online edition in Finnish]
- [http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/ English translation by John Martin Crawford]
- [http://www.arth.net/8Anthologies/DossierKalevala/KalevalaSummary.html-ssi The Kalevala's Contents]

Articles and Papers

- [http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/folklore/library/kalevala.html A scholarly study on the Kalevala]
- [http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=27015 Kalevala at Virtual Finland]
- [http://www.folklorefellows.fi/netw/ffn16/basics.html 16th edition of the Folklore Fellows Network has few articles about the Kalevala]
- [http://www.juminkeko.fi/en/ Juminkeko, information centre for Kalevala and Karelian culture]
- [http://www.karuse.info/metre.htm The Kalevala metre]
- [http://dbgw.finlit.fi/fili/bff/299/inha.htm# Songlands of the Kalevala]

Books

- The Kalevala by Keith Bosley (Introduction) and translations by Albert B. Lord, A contemporary English translation: ISBN 019283570X
- The Kalevala: Epic of the Finnish People, translations by Eino Friberg, Bjorn Landstrom, George C. Schoolfield, ISBN 9511101374
- The Kalevala: The Epic Poem of Finland translations by John Martin Crawford, ISBN 0766189384

Movies

- The Day the Earth Froze (1959). (Finish title: Sampo). [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053240/] Category:Epics Category:Nordic folklore Category:Finnish mythology Category:Finnish literature ja:カレワラ ko:칼레발라

Epic poetry

:For other meanings of epic, see epic (disambiguation). The epic is a broadly defined genre of poetry, and one of the major forms of narrative literature. It retells in a continuous narrative the life and works of a heroic or mythological person or group of persons. In the West, the Iliad, Odyssey, and the Nibelungenlied; and in the East, the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Shahnama are often cited as examples of the epic genre.

Oral epics or world folk epics

The first epics are associated strongly with preliterate societies and oral poetic traditions. In these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means. World folk epics are those epics which are not just literary masterpieces but also an integral part of the world view of a people. They were originally oral literatures, which were later written down by either single author or several writers. Studies of living oral epic traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry and Albert Lord demonstrated the paratactic model used for composing these poems. What they demonstrated was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and importance. This facilitates memorisation, as the poet is recalling each episode and using them to recreate the entire epic as they perform it. Parry and Lord also showed that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance. See also list of world folk-epics.

Epics in literate societies

Literate societies have often copied the epic format, and the earliest known European example is Virgil's Aeneid, which follows both the style and subject matter of Homer. Other obvious examples are Tulsidas' Sri Ramacharit Manas, following the style and subject matter of Valmiki's Ramayana,. and the Persian epic Shahnama by Ferdowsi. Classical epic conventions include: Invocatio (pray to the muse [of the epic]), Prepositio (introduction of the epic's theme), Enumeratio (counting the fighting armys / heroes), In medias res (start from the middle of an event), Deus ex machina (interruption / miracle from a god), Anticipatio (prediction), and Ephiteton ornans (permanent attributives of the hero[es])

Notable epic poems

- 20th century BC: The Epic of Gilgamesh (Sumerian mythology)
- 19th century BC: The Ramayana (Hindu mythology)
- 1316 BC: Traditional date for the Mahabharata (Hindu mythology).
- 8th century BC:
- The Iliad by Homer (Greek mythology)
- The Odyssey by Homer (Greek mythology)
- 1st century BC:
- Aeneid by Virgil
- Táin Bó Cúailnge (Irish mythology)
- c.3rd century: Cilappatikaram, a South Indian epic written by prince Ilango Adigal
- Sometime in the period 8th to the 10th century: Beowulf (Anglo-Saxon mythology)
- 10th century:
- Shahnameh
- Bhagavata Purana (Sanskrit "Stories of the Lord")
- 11th century:
- Digenis Acritas (Byzantine epic poem)
- La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland)
- Epic of King Gesar (Tibetan; compiled in 11th century from earlier sources)
- 12th century: The Knight in the Panther Skin by Shota Rustaveli
- 13th century:
- Poetic Edda (Norse mythology)
- Hervarar saga (Norse mythology)
- Völsunga saga (Norse mythology)
- Nibelungenlied (Germanic mythology)
- Brut by Layamon
- c.1300: Cursor Mundi by an anonymous cleric
- early 14th century: Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) by Dante Alighieri
- 1516: Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto
- c.1555: Lusiadas by Luis de Camões
- 1575 La Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso
- 16th century:
- Ramacharitmanas (based on the Ramayana) by Goswami Tulsidas
- The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
- 17th century:
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Obsidio Szigetianae ("Szigeti veszedelem"; Hungarian) by Miklós Zrínyi
- 19th century:
- Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- The Prelude by William Wordsworth
- Don Juan by George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
- Clarel by Herman Melville
- Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner
- Canigó by Jacint Verdaguer
- Venezuela Heroica, by Eduardo Blanco (1881)
- Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot (Finnish mythology)
- 20th century:
- Savitri by Aurobindo Ghose
- The Cantos by Ezra Pound
- The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis
- The Anathemata by David Jones
- Maximus by Charles Olson
- Paterson by William Carlos Williams
- The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill

References

- Heroic Song and Heroic Legend by Jan de Vries ISBN 0405105665

External links

- [http://WorldChronicle.net WorldChronicle.net] Category:Epics Category:Poetic form ja:叙事詩

Elias Lönnrot

Elias Lönnrot (April 9, 1802 - March 19, 1884) was a Finnish philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for composing the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. Lönnrot was born in Sammatti, Finland. He studied medicine at the Academy of Turku. Unfortunately the year he joined was the year of the Great Fire of Turku, burning down half the town - and the University. Lönnrot (and much of the rest of the University) moved to Helsinki, where he graduated in 1832. He got a job as district doctor of Kajaani (about in the middle of Finland) during a time of famine in the district. The famine had prompted the previous doctor to resign, making it possible for a very young doctor to get such a position. Several consecutive years of crop failure resulted in enormous losses of population and livestock; Lönnrot wrote letters to the State departments, asking for food, not medicines. He was the sole doctor for the about 4000 people of his district, at a time where doctors were rare and very expensive, and where people did not buy medicines from equally rare and expensive pharmacies, but rather trusted to their village healers and locally available remedies. His true passion lay in his native Finnish language. He began writing about the early Finnish language in 1827 and began collecting folk tales from the rural people about that time. Lönnrot went on extended leaves of absence from his doctor's office; he toured the countryside of Finland, Sapmi (Lapland), and nearby portions of Russian Karelia to support his collecting efforts. This led to a series of books: Kantele, 1829--1831 (the kantele is a Finnish traditional instrument); Kalevala, 1835--1836 (possibly Land of Heroes; better known as the "old" Kalevala); Kanteletar, 1840 (the Kantele Maiden); Sananlaskuja, 1842 (Proverbs); an expanded second edition of Kalevala, 1849 (the "new" Kalevala); and Finske-Svenskt lexikon, 1866--1880 (Finnish-Swedish Dictionary). Lönnrot was recognised for his part in preserving Finland's oral traditions by appointment as the Chair of Finnish Literature at the University of Helsinki. He died on March 19, 1884 in Sammatti, in the province of Nylandia. Botanists remember him for writing the first Finnish-language Flora Fennica - Suomen Kasvisto in 1860; in its day it was famed throughout Scandinavia, as it was among the very first common-language scientific texts. The second, expanded version was co-authored by Th. Saelan and published in 1866; this version is online here: [http://www.henriettesherbal.com/elias/ ibiblio] (in Finnish). The Flora Fennica would be comparatively insignificant were it not for the fact that Lönnrot, besides verses for the Kalevala, also collected uses of plants in his travels. His Flora Fennica includes many notes on plant uses in between descriptions of flower and leaf. The Finnish graphic artist Erik Bruun used Lönnrot as a motif for the 500 markka banknote in his banknote series. As a botanist he was well-respected, and in the standard botanical author abbreviation Lönnrot is applied to species he described.

External links

- Lönnrot, Elias Lönnrot, Elias Lönnrot, Elias Lönnrot, Elias Lönnrot, Elias Lönnrot, Elias ja:エリアス・リョンロート

FinlanD

Finland.

Epic

Epic can mean:
- Epic poetry, a style of poetry.
- EPIC (disambiguation), an abbreviation.
- Epic Age, a time period in Indian history.
- Epic (game), a series of wargames.
- Epic Comics, an imprint of Marvel Comics.
- Epic Illustrated, an anthology series published by Marvel Comics.
- Epic Games, a computer game developer.
- Epic metal, a type of heavy metal music.
- Epimorphism, epic morphism, in mathematics.
- Epic Mazur, an American rapper.
- Epic Systems Corporation, a healthcare software company.
- Epic RPG, an online text based role playing game.
- EPIC Theater, more than entertainment, presents ideas and invite the audience to make judgments on them. ;Music:
- E.P.I.C, a Singaporean freeform band.
- "Epic", a popular single by the rock band Faith No More.
- Epic Records, a record label.

Russia

The Russian Federation (, transliteration: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya or Rossijskaja Federacija), or Russia (Russian: Росси́я, transliteration: Rossiya or Rossija), is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of Europe and Asia. With an area of 17,075,200 km² (6,595,600 mi²), it is the largest country in the world (by land mass), covering almost twice the territory of the next-largest country, Canada. It ranks eighth in the world in population. It shares land borders with the following countries (counter-clockwise from NW to SE): Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland (only through Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. It is also close to the United States and Japan across stretches of water: the Diomede Islands (one controlled by Russia, the other by the United States) are just 3 km apart, and Kunashir Island (controlled by Russia but claimed by Japan) is about 20 kilometers from Hokkaido. Formerly the dominant republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Russia is now an independent country, and an influential member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, since the Union's dissolution in December 1991. During the Soviet era, Russia was officially called the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Russia is usually considered the Soviet Union's successor state in diplomatic matters. Most of the area, population, and industrial production of the Soviet Union, then one of the world's two superpowers, lay in Russia. After the breakup of the USSR, Russia's global role was greatly diminished, and cannot be compared to that of the former Soviet Union. In October 2005, the federal statistics agency reported that Russia's population has shrunk by more than half a million people dipping to 143 million.

History

Ancient Rus

:This section covers the pre-Russ ancient history of present Russia and its early medieval period, which is historically referred to as Ancient Rus. The vast lands of present Russia were home to disunited tribes who were variously overwhelmed by invading Goths, Huns, and Turkish Avars between the third and sixth centuries C.E. The Iranian Scythians populated the southern steppes, and a Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled the western portion of these lands through the 8th century. They in turn were displaced by a group of Scandinavians, the Varangians, who established a capital at the Slavic city of Novgorod and gradually merged with Slavic ruling classes. The Slavs constituted the bulk of the population from the 8th century onwards and slowly assimilated both the Scandinavians as well as native Finno-Ugric tribes, such as the Merya, the Muromians and the Meshchera. Meshchera The Varangian dynasty lasted several centuries, during which they affiliated with the Byzantine, or Orthodox church and moved the capital to Kiev in 1169 A.D. In this era the term "Rhos", or "Russ", first came to be applied to the Varangians and later also to the Slavs who peopled the region. In the 10th to 11th centuries this state of Kievan Rus became the largest in Europe and was quite prosperous, due to diversified trade with both Europe and Asia. Nomadic Turkic people Kipchaks (Polovtsi) conquered southern Russia at the end of 11th century and founded a nomadic state in the steppes along the Black Sea (Desht-e-Kipchak). In the 13th century the area suffered from internal disputes and was overrun by eastern invaders, the Golden Horde of the pagan Mongols and Muslim Turkic-speaking nomads who pillaged the Russian principalities for over three centuries. Also known as the Tatars, they ruled the southern and central expanses of present-day Russia, while its western zone was largely incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland. The political dissolution of Kievan Rus divided the Russian people in the north from the Belarusians and Ukrainians in the west. The northern part of Russia together with Novgorod retained some degree of autonomy during the time of the Mongol yoke and was largely spared the atrocities that affected the rest of the country. Nevertheless it had to fight the Germanic crusaders who attempted to colonize the region. Like in the Balkans and Asia Minor long-lasting nomadic rule retarded the country's economic and social development. Asian autocratic influences degraded many of the country's democratic institutions and affected its culture and economy in a very negative way. In spite of this, unlike its spiritual leader, the Byzantine Empire, Russia was able to revive, and organized its own war of reconquest, finally subjugating its enemies and annexing their territories. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 Russia remained the only more or less functional Christian state on the Eastern European frontier, allowing it to claim succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Imperial Russia

While still nominally under the domain of the Mongols, the duchy of Moscow began to assert its influence, and eventually tossed off the control of the invaders late in the 14th century. In the beginning of the 16th century the Russian state set the national goal to return all Russian territories lost as a result of the Mongolian invasion and to protect the borderland against attacks of hordes. The noblemen, receiving a manor from the sovereign, were obliged to serve in the army. The manor system became a basis for the nobiliary horse army. The Russian state persistently battled against Nogai-Horde and Crimean khanat which were successors of the Golden Horde. Russians, captivated by nomads, were on sale on Crimean slave markets. In 1571 Crimean khan Devlet-Girei, with a horde of 120 thousand horsemen, devastated Moscow. Annually thousands of Russians became victims of attacks by nomads. Tens of thousand of soldiers protected the southern borderland--a heavy burden for the state--which slowed its social and economic development. Ivan the Great first took the title Tsar (from the Roman Caesar, also written Czar) of Moscow following his marriage to Sofia, a Byzantine Princess (niece of the last Byzantine Emperor) consolidated surrounding areas under Moscow's dominion. At the end of 16 centuries Russian cossacks established the first settlements in Western Siberia. To the middle of 17th century Russian settlements were in Eastern Siberia, on Chukotka, the river Amur, coast of Pacific ocean. In 1648 Cossack Semyon Dezhnev opened the passage between America and Asia. The Russian Empire was born. Russian Empire] Muscovite control of the nascent nation continued after the Polish intervention 1605-1612 under the subsequent Romanov dynasty, beginning with Tsar Michael Romanov in 1613. Peter the Great, who ruled from 1689 to 1725, succeeded in bringing ideas and culture from Western Europe to a Russia which had been affected by primitive nomadic cultures. Catherine the Great, ruling from 1762 to 1796, enhanced this effort, establishing Russia not just as an Asian power, but on an equal footing with Britain, France, and Germany in Europe. She enlarged the Russian territory by the Partitions of Poland. Russia has taken territories with the ethnic Belarus and Ukrainian population, earlier parts of the medieval Kievan Rus'. As a result of victorious Russian-Turkish wars Russia reached to Black sea and has set as the purpose protection of Balkan Christians against a Turkish yoke. In 1783 Russia and Georgian Kingdom (which was almost totally devastated by Persian and Turkish invasions) have signed the treatise of Georgiev according to which Georgia has received protection of Russia. In 1812, having gathered nearly half a million soldiers from France, as well as from all of its vassal states in Europe, Napoleon entered Russia and was defeated by Russian troops. In 1813 Russian army defeated the French armies in Germany. Russia has won in the War of 1877-1878 and Ottoman Empire recognized the independence of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and autonomy of Bulgaria. Unrest of the peasants and suppression of the growing Intelligentsia were continuing problems however, and on the eve of World War I, the position of Tsar Nicholas II and his dynasty appeared precarious. Repeated devastating defeats of the Russian army in World War I led to widespread rioting in the major cities of the Russian Empire and to the overthrow in 1917 of the Romanovs. At the close of this Russian Revolution of 1917, a Marxist political faction called the Bolsheviks seized power in St. Petersburg and Moscow under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin. The Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist Party. A bloody civil war ensued, pitting the Bolsheviks' Red Army against a loose confederation of anti-socialist monarchist and bourgeois forces known as the White Army. The Red Army triumphed, and the Soviet Union was formed in 1922.

Russia as part of Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was to be a transnational worker's state free from nationalism, which Leninism teaches is a ruse used by the bourgeoisie to keep the international working classes from realizing their common exploited position and overthrowing the bourgeois. The concept of Russia as a separate national entity was therefore downplayed in the early Soviet Union. Although Russian institutions and cities certainly remained dominant, many non-Russians participated in the new government at all levels. One of these was a Georgian named Joseph Stalin. A brief power struggle ensued after Lenin's death in 1924. Stalin gradually eroded the various checks and balances which had been designed into the Soviet political system and assumed dictatorial power by the end of the decade. Leon Trotsky and almost all other Old Bolsheviks from the time of the Revolution were killed or exiled. As the 1930s began, Stalin launched the Great Purges, a massive series of political repressions. Millions of people who Stalin suspected of being a threat to his power in some way were executed or exiled to Gulag labor camps in remote areas of Siberia. Stalin forced rapid industrialization of the largely rural country and collectivization of its agriculture. Stalin also strengthened Russian dominance within the Soviet Union as he buttressed his own hold on power. In 1928, Stalin introduced his "First Five-Year Plan" for modernizing the Soviet economy. Most economic output was immediately diverted to establishing heavy industry. Civilian industry was modernized and heavy weapon factories established with German and US assistance. The plan worked, in some sense, as the Soviet Union successfully transformed from an agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse in an unbelievably short span of time, but widespread misery and famine ensued for many millions of people as a result of the severe economic upheaval. In 1939 the USSR was in strong opposition to nazi Germany, and supported the republicans in Spain who struggled against German and Italian troops. However, in 1938 Germany and the other major European powers signed the Munich treaty. Germany then divided Czechoslovakia with Poland. The Soviet government, being afraid of a German attack to the USSR, began diplomatic maneuvers. In 1939 Poland refused to participate in any measures of collective safety, so the USSR signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. On September, 17, 1939, when German armies were within 150 kilometers of the Soviet border, the Soviet army invaded eastern portions of Poland, populated by ethnic Ukrainians and Belorussians. The Soviet Union staged an artillery attack it claimed had come from neighboring Finland, and invaded it in an attempt to secure itself against future invasion by Germany (which Finland had good relations with) and to gain control of the country, separating it from Europe, and most importantly, from Germany. This conflict is now known as the Winter War. The invasion was a slight disappointment as only the eastern parts of Finland (Karelia) were occupied. This lead to Finland allying with Germany in order to gain revenge. Germany and its allies (Hungary, Italy, Finland, Romania) invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Although the Wehrmacht reached the outskirts of Moscow, the Red Army stopped the Nazi offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, which became the decisive turning point for Germany's fortunes in the war. The Soviets drove through Eastern Europe and captured Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945 (see Great Patriotic War). About 10 million Soviet citizens became victims of the oppressive policies and war crimes of Germany and its allies in the occupied territory. Although ravaged by the war, the Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as an acknowledged great power. The Red Army occupied Eastern Europe after the war, including the eastern half of Germany. Stalin installed loyal Communist governments in these satellite states. During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, with control always exerted exclusively from Moscow. The Soviets extracted heavy war reparations from the areas of Germany under their control, mostly in the form of machinery and industrial equipment. The Soviet Union consolidated its hold on eastern Europe (see Eastern bloc). The United States helped the western European countries establish democracies, and both countries sought to achieve economic, political, and ideological dominance over the Third World. The ensuing struggle became known as the Cold War, which turned the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, into its foes. Stalin died in early 1953 without leaving any instructions for the selection of a successor. His closest associates officially decided to rule the Soviet Union jointly, but secret police chief Lavrenty Beria appeared poised to seize dictatorial control. General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev organized an anti-Beria alliance and staged a coup d'etat. Beria was arrested in June of 1953 and executed later that year; Khrushchev became the undisputed leader of the USSR. Under Khrushchev, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, and Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the earth. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive, and foreign policy toward China and the United States suffered reverses, notably the Cuban Missile Crisis, when he began installing nuclear missles in Cuba and nearly provoked a war with the United States. Over the course of several angry outbursts at the United Nations, Khrushchev was increasingly seen by his colleagues as belligerent, boorish, and dangerous. The remainder of the Soviet leadership removed him from power in 1964. Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of rule by collective leadership ensued, lasting until Leonid Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent figure in Soviet political life. Brezhnev is frequently derided by historians for stagnating the development of the Soviet Union. In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that accompanied the birth of the Soviet Union, the prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change. In the mid and late 1980s, the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. He introduced the landmark policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), in an attempt to modernize Soviet communism. Glasnost meant that the harsh restrictions on free speech that had characterized most of the Soviet Union's existence were removed, and open political discourse and criticism of the government became possible again. Perestroika meant sweeping economic reforms designed to decentralize the planning of the Soviet economy. However, his initiatives provoked strong resentment amongst conservative elements of the government, and an unsuccessful military coup that attempted to remove Gorbachev from power instead led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin seized power in Russia and declared the end of exclusive Communist rule. The USSR splintered into 15 independent republics, and was officially dissolved in December of 1991 (see History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)). Since then, Russia has struggled in its efforts to build a democratic political system and a market economy to replace the strict centralized social, political, and economic controls of the Soviet era.

Post-Soviet Russia

market economy Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin had been elected President of Russia in June 1991 in the first direct presidential election in Russian history. In October 1991, as Russia was on the verge of independence, Yeltsin announced that Russia would proceed with radical market-oriented reform along the lines of Poland's "big bang," also known as "shock therapy." After the disintegration of the USSR, the economy of Russia went through a crisis. Outside Russia, in the newly independent states, were most of the nonfreezing ports, consumer goods factories, former Soviet pipelines, and significant numbers of the hi-tech enterprises (including the atomic power station). In Russia there was mainly heavy and military industry. Russia has taken up the responsibility for payment of the USSR's external debts, though its population is 50% of the population of the USSR. The largest state enterprises (a petroleum industry, metallurgy) have been privatized for the small sum of $US 600 million, which is far less than they were worth. Russia's Congress of People's Deputies attempted to impeach Yeltsin on 1993-03-26. Yeltsin's opponents gathered more than 600 votes for impeachment, but fell 72 votes short. On 1993-09-21, Yeltsin disbanded the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies by decree, which was illegal under the constitution. On September 21 there was a military showdown, the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993. With military help, Yeltsin held control. The conflict resulted in a number of civilian casualties, and was resolved in Yeltsin's favor. Elections were held on 1993-12-12. Since the Chechnyan seperatists declared independence in the early 1990s, an intermittent guerrilla war (First Chechen War, Second Chechen War) has been fought between disparate Chechen groups and the Russian military. Some of these groups have become increasingly Islamist over the course of the struggle. It is estimated that over 200,000 people have died in this conflict. Minor conflicts also exist in North Ossetia and Ingushetia. After Yeltsin's presidency in the 1990s, Vladimir Putin was elected in 2000. Under Putin, the intensified state control of the Russian media has raised Western concerns over Russian civil liberties. At the same time, the rising oil prices, tensions, and war in the Middle East have helped increase Russia's revenue from oil production and export, and have stimulated economic expansion. Putin's presidency has shown improvements in the Russian standard of living, as compared to the 1990s; despite acute crises, human rights abuses, and largely criticized government failures.

Politics

The Russian Federation is a federal republic with a president, directly elected for a four-year term, who holds considerable executive power. The president, who resides in the Kremlin, nominates the highest state officials, including the prime minister (or premier), who must be approved by the State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament, and governors, who must be approved by regional legislatures. The president can pass decrees (executive orders) without consent from Parliament and is also head of the armed forces and of the Russian National Security Council. Russia's bicameral parliament, the Federal Assembly (Russian: Федеральное Собрание, English transliteration: Federalnoye Sobraniye) consists of an upper house known as the Federation Council (Совет Федерации, Sovet Federatsii), composed of 178 delegates, which are appointed by executive and legislative bodies of each of 89 federal subjects for the term of four or five years, and a lower house known as the State Duma (Государственная Дума, Gosudarstvennaya Duma), comprising 450 deputies also serving a four-year term, of which 225 are elected by direct popular vote from single member constituencies and 225 are elected by proportional representation from nation-wide party lists. From the next elections, which are to be held in December 2007, all 450 members of the Duma will be elected from party lists.

Subdivisions

:See also: Federal districts of Russia, Federal subjects of Russia, Republics of Russia, Oblasts of Russia, Krais of Russia, Autonomous Oblasts of Russia, Autonomous Districts of Russia, Federal cities of Russia. Federal cities of Russia The Russian Federation consists of a great number of different federal subjects, making a total of 88 constituent components. There are 21 republics within the federation that enjoy a high degree of autonomy on most issues and these correspond to some of Russia's ethnic minorities. The remaining territory consists of 48 oblasts (provinces) and 7 krais (territories), as well as 9 autonomous okrugs (autonomous districts), and 1 autonomous oblast. Beyond these there are two federal cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg). Recently, seven extensive federal districts (four in Europe, three in Asia) have been added as a new layer between the above subdivisions and the national level.

Geography
federal districts The Russian Federation stretches across much of the north of the supercontinent of Eurasia. Although it contains a large share of the world's Arctic and sub-Arctic areas, and therefore has less population, economic activity, and physical variety per unit area than most countries, the great area south of these still accommodates a great variety of landscapes and climates. Most of Russia is in zones of a continental and Arctic climate. Russia is the coldest country of the world. Mid-annual temperature is −5,5 °C (for comparison, in Iceland +1,2 °C, in Sweden +4 °C). Most of the land consists of vast plains, both in the European part and the Asian part that is largely known as Siberia. These plains are predominantly steppe to the south and heavily forested to the north, with tundra along the northern coast. The permafrost (areas of Siberia and the Far East) occupies more than half of territory of Russia. Mountain ranges are found along the southern borders, such as the Caucasus (containing Mount Elbrus, Russia's and Europe's highest point at 5,633 m) and the Altai, and in the eastern parts, such as the Verkhoyansk Range or the volcanoes on Kamchatka. The more central Ural Mountains, a north-south range that form the primary divide between Europe and Asia, are also notable. Russia has an extensive coastline of over 37,000 km along the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, as well as more or less inland seas such as the Baltic, Black and Caspian seas. Some smaller bodies of water are part of the open oceans; the Barents Sea, White Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea are part of the Arctic, whereas the Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan belong to the Pacific Ocean. Major islands found in them include Novaya Zemlya, the Franz-Josef Land, the New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. (See List of islands of Russia). Many rivers flow across Russia. See Rivers of Russia. Major lakes include Lake Baikal, Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega. See List of lakes in Russia.
Borders
The most practical way to describe Russia is as a main part (a large contiguous portion with its off-shore islands) and an exclave (at the southeast corner of the Baltic Sea). The main part's borders and coasts (starting in the far northwest and proceeding counter-clockwise) are:
- borders with the following countries: Norway and Finland,
- a short coast on the Baltic Sea, facing eight other countries on its shores from Finland to Estonia and including the port of St. Petersburg,
- borders with Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine,
- a coast on the Black Sea, facing five other countries on its shores from Ukraine to Georgia,
- borders with Georgia and Azerbaijan,
- a coast on the Caspian Sea, facing four other countries on its shores from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan,
- borders with Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea,
- an extensive coastline that provides access with all the maritime nations of the world, and stretches
- from the North Pacific Ocean including
- the Sea of Japan (where the west shore of Russia's Sakhalin lies),
- the Sea of Okhotsk (where the east shore of Sakhalin and its Kurile Islands lie), and
- the Bering Sea,
- through the Bering Strait (where its minor island of Big Diomede is separated by only a few miles from Little Diomede, a part of the US state of Alaska),
- to the Arctic Ocean, including
- the Chukchi Sea (where the south and east shores of its Wrangel Island lie),
- the East Siberian Sea (where its west shore, and the east shores of its New Siberian Islands lie),
- the Laptev Sea (where their west shores lie),
- the Kara Sea (where the east shore of its Novaya Zemlya lies),
- the Barents Sea (where their west shore, the south shores of its Franz-Josef Land the port of Murmansk and important naval facilities lie, and where the White Sea reaches far inland). The exclave, constituted by the Kaliningrad Oblast,
- shares borders with
- Poland to its south and
- Lithuania to its north and east, and
- has a northwest coast on the Baltic Sea. The Baltic and Black Sea coasts of Russia have less direct and more constrained access to the high seas than its Pacific and Arctic ones, but both are nevertheless important for that purpose. The Baltic gives immediate access with the nine other countries sharing its shores, and between the main part of Russia and its Kaliningrad Oblast exclave. Via the straits that lie within Denmark, and between it and Sweden, the Baltic connects to the North Sea and the oceans to its west and north. The Black Sea gives immediate access with the five other countries sharing its shores, and via the Dardanelles and Marmora straits adjacent to Istanbul, Turkey, to the Mediterranean Sea with its many countries and its access, via the Suez Canal and the Straits of Gibraltar, to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The salt waters of the Caspian Sea, the world's largest lake, afford no access with the high seas.
Spatial extent
The two most widely separated points in Russia are about 8,000 km (5000 mi) apart along a geodesic (i.e. shortest line between two points on the Earth's surface). These points are: the boundary with Poland on a 60-km-long (40-mi-long) spit of land separating the Gulf of Gdańsk from the Vistula Lagoon; and the farthest southeast of the Kurile Islands, a few miles off Hokkaido Island, Japan. However, this is confusing because the points which are furthest separated in longitude are "only" 6,600 km (4,100 mi) apart along a geodesic. These points are: in the West, the same spit; in the East, the Big Diomede Island (Ostrov Ratmanova). It is also often mentioned that the Russian federation spans eleven time zones.
Cities
As of 2005 Russia has 13 cities with over a million inhabitants (from largest to smallest): Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Omsk, Kazan, Chelyabinsk, Rostov-on-Don, Ufa, Volgograd and Perm. See also: List of cities in Russia
Economy
More than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia is now trying to establish a market economy and achieve more consistent economic growth. Russia saw its comparatively developed centrally-planned economy contract severely for five years, as the executive and legislature dithered over the implementation of reforms and Russia's industrial base faced a serious decline. Moreover, an emergency livestock shortage in 1987, which triggered large-scale international aid, severely bruised the ego, as well as the economy, of the emerging Russian state. After the breakup of the USSR, Russia's first slight recovery, showing the signs of open-market influence, occurred in 1997. That year, however, Asian financial crisis culminated in the August depreciation of the ruble in 1998, a debt default by the government, and a sharp deterioration in living standards for most of the population. Consequently, the year 1998 was marked by recession and intense capital flight. Nevertheless, the economy started recovering in 1999. Then it entered a phase of rapid economic expansion, the GDP growing by an average of 6.7% annually in 1999-2005 on the back of higher petroleum prices, weaker ruble, and increasing service production and industrial output. The economic development of the country, however, has been extremely uneven: the capital region of Moscow contributes a third to the country's GDP having only a tenth of its population. The recent recovery, made possible due to high world oil prices, along with a renewed government effort in 2000 and 2001 to advance lagging structural reforms, has raised business and investor confidence over Russia's prospects in its second decade of transition. Russia remains heavily dependent on exports of commodities, particularly oil, natural gas, metals, and timber, which account for about 80% of exports, leaving the country vulnerable to swings in world prices. In recent years, however, the economy has also been driven by growing internal consumer demand that has increased by over 12% annually in 2000-2005, showing the strengthening of its own internal market. The country's GDP shot up to reach €1.2 trillion ($1.5 trillion) in 2004, making it the ninth largest economy in the world and the fifth largest in Europe. If the current growth rate is sustained, the country is expected to become the second largest European economy after Germany (€1.9 trillion or $2.3 trillion) and the sixth largest in the world within a few years. The greatest challenge facing the Russian economy is how to encourage the development of SME (small and medium sized enterprises) in a business climate with a young and dysfunctional banking system, dominated by Russian oligarchs. Many of Russia's banks are owned by entrepreneurs or oligarchs, who often use the deposits to lend to their own businesses. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank have attempted to kick-start normal banking practices by making equity and debt investments in a number of banks, but with very limited success. Other problems include disproportional economic development of Russia's own regions. While the huge capital region of Moscow is a bustling, affluent metropolis living on the cutting edge of technology with a per capita income rapidly approaching that of the leading Eurozone economies, much of the country, especially its indigenous and rural communities in Asia, lags significantly behind. Market integration is nonetheless making itself felt in some other sizeable cities such as Saint Petersburg, Kaliningrad, and Ekaterinburg, and recently also in the adjacent rural areas. Encouraging foreign investment is also a major challenge due to legal, some cultural, linguistic, economic and political peculiarities of the country. Nevertheless, there have been significant inflow of capital in recent years from many European investors attracted by cheaper land, labor and higher growth rates than in the rest of Europe. Amazingly high levels of education and societal involvement achieved by the majority of the population, including women and minorities, secular attitudes, mobile class structure, better integration of various minorities in the mainstream culture set Russia far apart from the majority of the so-called developing and even some developed nations. So far, the country is also benefiting from rising oil prices and has been able to pay off much of its formerly huge debt. Equal redistribution of capital gains from the natural resource industries to other sectors is also a problem. Still, since 2003, exports of natural resources started decreasing in economic importance as the internal market has strengthened considerably largely stimulated by intense construction, as well as consumption of increasingly diverse goods and services. Yet teaching customers and encouraging consumer spending is a relatively tough task for many provincial areas where consumer demand is primitive, although some laudable progress has already been made in larger cities especially in clothing, food, entertainment industries. The arrest of Russia's wealthiest businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of fraud and corruption in relation to the large-scale privatizations organized under then-President Yeltsin has caused many foreign investors to worry about the stability of the Russian economy. Most of the large fortunes currently prevailing in Russia seem to be the product of either acquiring government assets particularly at low costs or gaining concessions from the government. Other countries have expressed concerns and worries at the "selective" application of the law against individual businessmen. However, some international firms are investing heavily in Russia. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Russia had nearly $26 billion in cumulative foreign direct investment inflows during the 2001-2004 period (of which $11.7 billion occurred last year alone).
Demographics
Despite its comparatively very high population, Russia has a low average population density due to its enormous size. Population is densest in the European part of Russia, in the Ural Mountains area, and in the south-western parts of Siberia; the south-eastern part of Siberia that meets the Pacific Ocean, known as the Russian Far East, is sparsely populated, with its southern part being densest. The Russian Federation is home to as many as 160 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. As of the 2002 census, 79.8% of the population is ethnically Russian, 3.8% Tatar, 2% Ukrainian, 1.2% Bashkir, 1.1% Chuvash, 0.9% Chechen, 0.8% Armenian, and the remaining 10.3% includes those who did not specify their ethnicity as well as (in alphabetical order) Avars, Azerbaijanis, Belarusians, Buryats, Chinese, Evenks, Georgians, Germans, Greeks, Ingushes, Inuit, Jews, Kalmyks, Karelians, Kazakhs, Koreans, Maris, Mordvins, Nenetses, Ossetians, Poles, Tuvans, Udmurts, Uzbeks, Yakuts, and others. Nearly all of these groups live compactly in their respective regions; Russians are the only people significantly represented in every region of the country. The Russian language is the only official state language, but the individual republics have often made their native language co-official next to Russian. Cyrillic alphabet is the only official script, which means that these languages must be written in Cyrillic in official texts. The Russian Orthodox Church is the dominant Christian religion in the Federation; other religions include Islam, various Protestant faiths, Judaism, Roman Catholicism and Buddhism. Division into different religions takes place primarily along ethnic lines: majority of Russians are Orthodox, majority of people of Turkic descent are Muslim, Judaism is very uncommon among non-Jews. Neopaganism is on the rise, especially among Slavic people. See Religion in Russia for more.
Culture

- Cinema of Russia
- List of famous Russians
- Music of Russia
- Russian architecture
- Russian cuisine
- Russian humour
- Russian literature
- List of Russian language poets
- Russian formalism
- Russian folklore
- Russian music
- Russian painting
- Russian theatre
Name
:Main article: Etymology of Rus and derivatives. The name of the country derives from the name of the Rus' people. The origin of the people itself and of their name is a matter of controversy.
Miscellaneous topics

- Communications in Russia
- Education in Russia
- Foreign relations of Russia
- Law of the Russian Federation
- List of Russian companies
- Military of Russia
- Postage stamps and postal history of Russia
- Public holidays in Russia
- Russian Association of Scouts/Navigators
- Tourism in Russia
- Transportation in Russia
References

- The New Columbia Encyclopedia, Col.Univ.Press, 1975
- World Civilizations:The Global Experience, by Peter Stearns, Michael Adas, Stuart Schwartz, and Marc Gilbert
External links

Government resources

- [http://www.duma.ru/ Duma] - Official site of the parliamentary lower house (in Russian)
- [http://www.council.gov.ru/eng/index.html Federative Council] - Official site of the parliamentary upper house
- [http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/ Kremlin] - Official presidential site (in English)
- [http://www.gov.ru/ Gov.ru] - Official governmental portal (in Russian)
- [http://www.russianembassy.org/ Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United States]
- [http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/russia.html Russia Energy Resources and Industry from U.S. Department of Energy]
- [http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1006.html U.S. State Department Consular Information Sheet: Russia]
General information

- [http://www.russiaprofile.org/index.wbp Russia Profile]
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1102275.stm Count

1917

1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.

Events

January-February

Julian calendar
- January 2 - The Royal Bank of Canada takes over Quebec Bank.
- January 22 - World War I: President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe.
- January 25 - The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million
- January 25 - Anti-prostitution drive in San Francisco attracts huge crowds to public meetings. At one meeting attended by 7000 people, 20000 are kept out for lack of room. In a conference with Rev. Paul Smith, an outspoken foe of prostitution, 300 prostitutes make a plea for toleration explaining they had been forced into the practice by poverty. When Smith asked if they would take other work at $8 to $10 a week, the ladies laughed derisively, which lost them public sympathy. The police close about 200 houses of prostitution shortly thereafter [http://www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hbtbc12.htm]
- January 26 - The sea defences at the village of Hallsands, Devon are breached, leading to all but one of the houses becoming uninhabitable
- January 28 - The United States ends search for Pancho Villa
- January 30 - Pershing's troops in Mexico begin to withdraw to USA. They reach Columbus, New Mexico February 5
- January 31 - World War I: Germany announces its U-boats will engage in unrestricted submarine warfare.
- February 3 - World War I: The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany
- February 5 - The constitution of Mexico is adopted.
- February 13 - Mata Hari is arrested for spying
- February 23 - The Russian Revolution begins with the overthrow of the Tsar.
- February 24 - World War I: United States ambassador to the United Kingdom Walter H. Page is given the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany offers to give the American Southwest back to Mexico if Mexico will declare war on the United States.

March-April

- March 1 - U.S. government releases the plaintext of the Zimmermann Telegram to the public
- March 1 - Japanese city Omuta, Fukuoka is founded
- March 2 - The enactment of the Jones Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
- March 4 - Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman member of the United States House of Representatives.
- March 8 - The United States Senate adopts the cloture rule in order to limit filibusters.
- March 11 - Mexican Revolution - Venustiano Carranza elected president of Mexico - USA gives recognition of his government de jure
- March 15 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates.
- March 21 - The Danish West Indies become the Virgin Islands when Denmark transfers control over the islands to the United States after the purchase of the islands on January 25.
- March 26 - World War I: First Battle of Gaza - British cavalry troops retreat after 17,000 Turks block their advance.
- March 31 - The United States takes possession of the Virgin Islands after paying $25 million to Denmark.
- April 2 - World War I: US President Woodrow Wilson asks U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany.
- April 6 - World War I: United States declares war on Germany. [http://wikisource.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_declares_war_on_Germany text]
- April 9-12 - World War I: Canadian troops win the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
- April 10 - Ammunition factory explodes in Chester, Pennsylvania - 133 dead
- April 11 - World War I: Brazil severs relations with Germany
- April 16 - Lenin arrives in Petrograd
- April 16 - The Nivelle Offensive commences.

May-October

- May 9 - The Nivelle Offensive was abandoned.
- May 13 - Three peasant children claim to see the Virgin Mary above a holm oak tree in Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal.
- May 18 - World War I: The Selective Service Act passes the U.S. Congress giving the President the power of conscription.
- May 27 - Over 30.000 French troops refuse to go to the trenches in Missy-aux-Bois
- June 1 - French infantry regiment seizes Missy-aux-Bois and declares anti-war military government. French army soon apprehend them
- June 5 - World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as "Army registration day."
- June 13 - World War I: First major German bombing raid on London left 162 dead and 432 injured
- June 15 - The United States enacts the Espionage Act.
- July 6 - Arabian troops led by T.E. Lawrence capture Aqaba from the Turks.
- July 7 - Aleksandr Kerensky forms the Provisional Government in Russia after the deposing of the tsar.
- July 12 - Phelps Dodge Corporation deports over 1000 suspected IWW members from Bisbee, Arizona
- July 17 - King George V of the United Kingdom issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British royal family will bear the surname Windsor.
- July 20 - Corfu Declaration that enabled post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia was signed by the Yugoslav Committee and Kingdom of Serbia
- July 25 - Sir Thomas Whyte introduces the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).
- August 29 - World War I: The Military Service Act is passed in the Canadian House of Commons giving the Canadian government the right to conscript men into the army.
- October 15 - World War I: At Vincennes outside of Paris, Dutch dancer Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for Germany.
- October 19 - Love Field in Dallas, Texas is opened.
- October 26 - World War I: Brazil declared in state of war with Germany.

November

- November - Don Republic declares independence from Soviet Russia
- November 2 - Zionism: The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for Jewish settlement in Palestine.
- November 6 - World War I: Third Battle of Ypres ends: After three months of fierce fighting, Canadian forces take Ypres in Belgium.
- November 7 - October Revolution begins: The workers of St.Peterburg in Russia, with leaders the Bolsheviks and the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin attacked against the ineffective Kerensky Provisional Government (Russia was still using the Julian Calendar at the time, so period references show a October 25 date. The Soviets of Workers, Farmers and Soldiers took for the first time in history the economy and the administration of a country.
- November 7 - World War I: Third Battle of Gaza ends - United Kingdom forces capture Gaza from the Ottoman Empire.
- November 15 - Finland takes a step towards full sovereignty recognizing the personal union with Russia finished after the Tsar being dethroned.
- November 16 - British troops occupy Tel Aviv and Jaffa in Palestine.
- November 16 - Georges Clemenceau becomes prime minister of France
- November 20 - World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins - British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are soon beaten back.
- November 20 - Ukraine is declared a republic.
- November 22 - In Montreal, Canada, the National Hockey Association breaks up (on November 26 it was replaced with the National Hockey League).
- November 26 - The National Hockey League is formed.
- November 29 - Striking coal miners at Rostov declare Don Soviet Republic - it lasts two weeks.

December

- December 3 - After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic (the bridge partially collapsed on August 29 1907 and September 11 1916).
- December 6 - Finland's declaration of independence.
- December 6 - Halifax Explosion: Two freighters collide in the harbour at Halifax, Nova Scotia and cause a huge explosion that kills at least 1963 people, injures 9000 and destroys part of the city. Until Hiroshima, this was the biggest manmade explosion.
- December 11 - British troops take Jerusalem from the troops of the Ottoman Empire
- December 25 - Why Marry?, first dramatic play to win a Pulitzer Prize, opens at the Astor Theatre in New York City.
- December 26 - United States president Woodrow Wilson uses the Federal Possession and Control Act to take control of nearly all American railroads under the United States Railroad Administration so they can be more efficiently used to transport troops and materials for the war effort.

Unknown dates

- Lions Clubs International is formed.
- First commercially issued recordings of jazz music, by Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
- Tolkien starts writing the original Book of Lost Tales (the first version of the Silmarillion), thus Middle-earth is first written this year (After the war, Tolkien tries to publish the stories, but he is neglected, as writers call his work a "fairy tale"; unsuitable for adult readership).
- Conscription crisis in Canada.
- Female suffrage in the Netherlands

Ongoing events

- World War I (1914-1918)
- Armenian Genocide (1915-1918)
- Encephalitis lethargica (1917-1928)

Births

January-March

- January 2 - Vera Zorina, German dancer and actress (d. 2003)
- January 3 - Roger W. Straus, Jr., American publisher (d. 2004)
- January 10 - Jerry Wexler, American record producer
- January 19 - John Raitt, American actor and singer (d. 2005)
- January 24 - Ernest Borgnine, American actor
- January 25 - Ilya Prigogine, Russian-born physicist and chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 2003)
- February 4